Talk:Technology
How should this page be organized you think? I say make a tech tree out of links, and clicking the link goes to a description of the technology. - 168.28.202.43 :Rather than try to describe it, I just threw together a rough framework on the article. I don't know how well it will stand up to ALL the tech tree items (that's a pretty tall order). I don't have a copy of the tech tree handy, but I'm wondering if there might be enough items in each tech "category" to warrant an article for each category. As for a link for each tech... I'm not sure how detailed we will want to get. If it's just a line or two, it might just stay at the tech (or tech category) level. Need to be careful not to step on Stardock's toes. Then again, we could make like the Political party article and transclude all the little articles. --Steelviper 21:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC) Also, if the techs are just listed out, there is no way of telling which techs lead to other techs. You think tabs could help here? --67.191.232.7 :That's a good point, 67. (Can I call you 67?) I was assuming a flat/linear structure for the tech tree, and looking at it that is obviously not the case. I'll ponder on it, as I don't have any immediate solutions. On the individual tech pages you might have a "technology navigator" template, with "Prereqs", "Current tech", and "Leads to" links to the related techs (kind of like the succession box for Presidents on wikipedia). That won't help on the high level overview, though. --Steelviper 00:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC) ::I like the idea of the template. As you say, it's going to be tricky to reprensent them all. The tech tree divides them by class. I would note that many of them are effectively just "Laser 1 to 5" so that might cut down on the overall representation of it (the link could go to the first of the series). -- 00:49, 1 March 2006 (UTC) :::Maybe we should turn the problem on its head, or side in this case. Use some sort of a table structure to hold the techs. Branches would spread out across the width (x axis) and successive techs would run the length (y axis, negative). It would hold up ok for most of the tech tree... except the part of the weapons that gets 7 wide. However, it's 4 wide for most of the tech tree, so if we could find a way around the exception, we might have at least one option. Just trying to think outside the box...--Steelviper 00:59, 1 March 2006 (UTC) :::I created a demonstration of the above concept here. I'm still not completely satisfied with it, but I hoped that it might spark an idea. --Steelviper 15:16, 1 March 2006 (UTC) ::::And I've modified it (the colours), and posted it using a chunk of the diplomacy tree. It's here. I don't believe that keeping the whole thing many columns wide will work incredibly well, hence my splitting it up. Anchors could be used to move a person through it, though my Wiki-Fu is weak and my attempt at doing so failed. Consumed Crustacean 23:06, 1 March 2006 (UTC) :::::From what I've learned of Wiki-fu, headers (with the double "=") create anchors (hence their use in my proof of concept). However, ideally there'd be a cleaner way to place anchors than using wiki-headers. (This would likely involve more html-fu than wiki-fu, but this may just be my wiki-ignorance talking.) I'm glad there are others pondering the problem though. --Steelviper 23:12, 1 March 2006 (UTC) Instead of separating them to categories. Maybe we can label technology such as xeno communications, hyper drive, xeno engineering as level 1 tech. Then universal translator, new propulsion technique, basic logistics, planetary improvements, xeno research will be marked as level 2 tech. This will allow the viewer to instantly know how many technology he/she has to go before getting to that tech. This will work because most of the technology in galciv2 only has one prerequisite. Siel 06:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC) I don't know exactly what sorts of things you can do in wiki articles, but if full HTML is supported, why not just do an imagemap? That would give the most elegant and navigable result, IMO. Ony problem is the techtree image from the poster is too large, so we'd have to make a new image (can easily use the same images as in the game to make it, though). DarthKryo 04:05, 6 March 2006 (UTC) Attempt 1 I've added a first attempt at the diplomatic techs, since nothing was really there anyways. It's as far from pretty as you can get, but it's functional and clear. Consumed Crustacean 23:33, 5 March 2006 (UTC) :Looks fine. The propulsion techs should be pretty easy too. It's the crazy multi-branching techs that'll take some thinking. Also... we're currently linking from this page to the concepts and to the governments. Are we going to have the techs coexist with the concepts, or have a Trade (technology) seperate from the Trace (concept)? Tricky stuff... --Steelviper 23:36, 5 March 2006 (UTC) I updated the diplomacy techs (this page might not reflect that change immediately), this is the look that I'll try to go with when I attempt the others, unless someone else attempts them before me. I think I have an idea for the branches too, but it'll probably be hacky like this one was until I figure out a nicer solution. Consumed Crustacean 19:41, 8 March 2006 (UTC) Individual Technologies After looking at the wanted pages yesterday for something for me to do at work today, I noticed a LOT of them were links to individual technologies. Therefore, what I've done is e-mailed myself a copy of the techtree xml file (verson 1.0x) to myself, and will be creating articles with the relevant data in each one. It won't be that pretty (I'm still getting used to Wiki-markup) but at least the basic information will be there, and should make it easier to debug in the future. -- 21:11, 7 March 2006 (UTC) Missing Technologies These techs are still missing from the tables. I find most of them difficult to add: *Subspace Rebounder (Good alignment, req Shields III) *Dynamic Shielding (Good alignment, req Barriers III) *Arnorian Battle Armor (Good alignment, req Tri-Strontium) *Telepathic Defense (Good alignment, req ECM III) *Psionic Shredder (Evil alignment, req Graviton Driver III) *Psionic Missile (Evil alignment, req Harpoon III) *Psionic Beam (Evil alignment, req Phasors) *Neutrality Learning Center (Neutral alignment, req Research Academy) The neutral weapon/defense techs seem to be missing from the game. - 23.50, 14 March 2006 (UTC) :I sort of prepped the tables a while ago to add these in. Then I went on hiatus. It shouldn't be too hard to put them in, and I'll do so tomorrow or on the weekend. Consumed Crustacean 00:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC) ::Wow, I'm excellent at not doing things. 24.76.102.140 22:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC) Bad link... Though the link to the tech pdf works, the forum posting it points to contains a URL that is no longer valid. Quite disappointing, too, given that I came to the wiki looking precisely for that pdf...